The Parades start on Friday night
and run for 13 days, 5-6 parades on weekends and 2-3 parades
on weekday nights. Parades are organizedby KREWS - local clubs, funded by their
members and structured as a royal court - with kings, queens,
knights, ladies etc etc. So, each parade has all these characters
present on the floats. Parades are named aftertheirkrews: Rex, Backus, Zulu, Endymion, Thoth,
Tucks. Maskers throw beads, doubloons, plastic cups from the
floats and the spectators try to catch them. It's a big game!Each parade has a theme: Rex in
1998 was presenting "gems", so each float was decorated
in colors of different precious stones.

Here's a king of one of the parades
- Rex, I guess, but I'm not sure.

King of Thoth.Night
parades are spectacular -Backus and Endymion are the most famous.
I don't have many pictures of them (too dark), but several hours
of video-tapes. Each float is decorated with colored lights,
Backus even used lazers last year.

Here are more pictures from the pet-parade.COSTUMES!
-obligatory on Mardi Gras Day. Everybody is dressed up. The best
ones are usually in 700+ blocks of Bourbon, where all gay clubs
are.

New Orleans MARDI GRAS (FAT TUESDAY)
is the biggest, wildest, the most spectacular and colorful Carnival
in North America. About 6 mln people come to Big Easy to see
all the action. Mardi Gras Day is always 40 days before Easter
Sunday and marks the last day of partying before the lint. This
year it's 2/16/99.Artists
and models after the doggie-parade - so called "Barkus"
- when pets and their owners dress up and march around the French
Quater.Me & Sasha ready for work.Face-painting for kids and tits-painting
for maidens. Girls like to do it - they feel less shy to show
them to guys - which is a Mardi Gras favorite pastime, especially
on Bourbon street.Girls
who show their tits get a lot of beads - the rest of the crowd
has to buy them or catch them from the floats during parades.
Beads and doubloons (souvenier coins) are Mardi Gras play money
- they can be traded, collected or given as a gift for more or
less innocent sexual favors. We got tonns of beads for face-painting
(we preferred cash - but I'd work for really good beads too).
My flat is still covered with them all over. Here are the kids
catching beads and doubloons. Families occupy their spots along
St.Charles Avenue, bring ladders, chairs, matrasses and camp
there for the whole carnival
- so they can see all parades. The best captive audience I
ever had!Bourbon street
on Mardi Gras Day 1996 - you can't walk there, wall to wall crowd.Mardi Gras colors are green,
purple and gold - you can see them everywhere in the city: on
balconies, in costumes, banners etc.Russian
face-painting team on tour! From the left: Irina, Boris and Sasha.The "last parade" of Mardi Gras
- cops cleaning Bourban street from people at midnight on Fat
Tuesday. They are followed by cleaning machines - so you'd better
hide, if you don't want to get wet...

Mellow Ash Wednesday - carnival is over... Till next year.Street performers
are a part of Mardi Gras, as a usual Big Easy attraction. New
Orleans is probably on of the nicest cities in USA for buskers,
but the competition is fierce too...

Here are some examples of Carnival
face-painting and body-art.

More body-art.

Here
are some typical New Orleans masks, which we sometimes use as
samples for face-painting.